Walking elegy (Tensura/MCU self insert as a true dragon): chapter 15: and Thus, Nothing danced

I advise to listen to do I wanna know of artic monkeys to make the reading even better

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The world folded.

Not metaphorically.

 Not symbolically. 

The actual world, buildings, streets, mountains beyond bent like paper in the hands of an impatient child. 

Stone twisted into impossible geometries. 

Gravity became a suggestion rather than a law. 

Up inverted into down, left spiraled into right, and the sky compressed into a kaleidoscope of fractured light.

I stood untouched at the center of it all.

My posture remained loose, weight shifted onto one hip, arms crossed beneath my chest. 

Around me, Kamar-Taj's architecture and its surroundings warped into Escher nightmares, staircases that led nowhere, walls that existed in three places simultaneously, courtyards that folded back into themselves like recursive dreams.

The movies hadn't done this justice.

How could they? 

Film was a flat medium trying to capture something that existed beyond the constraints of conventional space. 

This sight before me was the Mirror Dimension in all its maddening, beautiful glory, reality unmoored from its foundations, rewritten according to the will of sorcerers who understood that the universe was far more flexible than most people realized.

Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous.

I could have avoided this entirely, of course.

I was a True Dragon. 

The literal embodiment of Nothing. 

Had I wanted to enter Kamar-Taj undetected, nothing would have seen me. 

Nothing would have touched me. 

Nothing of what was happening right now would be happening because I would have simply not been in any way that mattered to their senses.

But where was the fun in that?

Orange mandalas ignited across my peripheral vision. 

Sorcerers materialized from impossible angles, below, above, through walls that weren't walls anymore. 

Their hands moved in practiced patterns, fingers tracing sigils that burned against the warped air.

I moved.

Not running. 

Not fleeing. 

Just... adjusting my position with the minimal effort required, like turning a page in a book I'd already read. 

My foot lifted, toes pointed, and I rotated on the ball of my other foot as a blast of eldritch energy screamed through the space my head had occupied a moment before.

The attack continued past me, struck a wall that had been floor a second ago, and dissolved into sparks that fell upward.

Another attack. 

This time from behind or what passed for behind in a space where direction was negotiable. 

I leaned backward, spine arching, hair spilling down as my body described a perfect arc. 

The spell passed so close I felt its heat against my throat.

I didn't straighten immediately. 

Instead, I let my telekinesis catch me, lift me, rotate me parallel to what might have been ground or ceiling or both. 

My arms spread wide, and I floated there suspended, relaxed, as if I were lounging on an invisible couch while reality twisted around me.

‘So I wanna know~’ I sang mentally , watching another wave of attacks converge on my position. ‘Do I wanna know?~’

Didn’t know why but the song was ringing non stop right now in my head and to be frank, I wasn’t against it.

My body twisted, lazy, economical, no wasted motion and I was somewhere else. 

Still horizontal to nothing in particular, still relaxed, still untouched. 

A mandala expanded where I'd been, collapsing into itself with a sound like breaking glass played in reverse.

One might wonder why I was making this harder for myself.

The answer was simple: hierarchy.

I was going to be stealing from gods, breaking into vaults, manipulating events that would shape this entire universe's future. 

Low-key might work for a while, sure. But eventually, inevitably, I'd be noticed. 

Better to establish the pecking order now, make it clear exactly where I stood in relation to Earth's magical protectors.

Let them understand from the start that I was beyond them.

In other words this was the pre notice telling them to better not fuck with me.

Besides, they were teaching me. 

Probably didn't realize it, probably thought they were just trying to subdue an intruder, but every spell they threw was a lesson I absorbed.

Curses were my specialty. 

Had been since I'd awakened in my second life as a True Dragon and felt the touch of Nothing humming into my bones. 

And curses were just spells with negative intent which meant all spells were curses waiting to be inverted, all magic was just energy shaped by will and desire.

The universe of origin didn't matter. Magic was magic. 

The syntax might differ, the gestures might vary, but the underlying principles remained constant. 

Will. 

Intent. 

Energy.

 Transformation.

I saw the spells coming at me, broke them down even as I avoided them. 

I listened to the words of powers, the incarnation, the arias used by the sorcerers:

There, a Crimson Bands conjuration, energy that sought to bind and restrain. The spell wove itself from raw dimensional energy, creating constructs that existed half in this reality and half in another. The binding wasn't physical; it was conceptual, telling your body that it couldn't move because the universe said so.

Interesting. I filed that away, understood how it worked, how I could replicate it. How I could make it better.

Another attack, Eldritch Whips, energy shaped into tendrils that lashed out with physical force. Simple kinetic manipulation wrapped in dimensional energy. The whip didn't just hit; it phased slightly, allowing it to pass through conventional defenses. Clever, but crude.

I somersaulted through the air, still horizontal, still lazily and let the whips pass through empty space.

Bolts of pure force. Mandala shields that appeared and disappeared. Portals that tried to swallow me whole, sending me somewhere else, somewhere away. Dimensional doors that would strand me between realities if I stepped through.

I catalogued them all.

The Flames of the Faltine as called by one them was something I could see borrowed fire from an extra-dimensional entity, burning with heat that existed beyond the physical. These flames didn't just consume matter; they consumed possibility, erasing what something could become. 

They found themselves extinguished.

The Winds of Watoomb, another spell, air given weight and cutting edge, able to slice through steel and stone with equal ease. The spell drew on storm entities older than Earth, channeling their fury through the caster's will. 

They found themselves dispersed.

The Bolts of Balthakk, an offensive spell, pure destructive force, borrowed from a being of living chaos. The bolts didn't follow ballistic trajectories; they followed intention, seeking their target across twisted space.

They found themselves destroyed.

The Chains of Krakkan, a sealing spell, spectral restraints that bound not the body but the concept of movement itself. Wrapped in these, you didn't just become immobile; you became incapable of remembering how to move.

They broke like all things ought to.

The Vapors of Valtorr, mist that sapped strength and will, that made magic itself sluggish and difficult. The vapors were semi-sentient, guided by hunger rather than intelligence.

They found themselves blown away.

The Daggers of Daveroth, conjured blades that existed partially outside time, striking moments before they were thrown. Dodging required predicting not where they would be, but where they had already been.

It was such and thus such happened.

The Mists of Morpheus, illusions so convincing they became temporary reality. Those caught within didn't just see falsehoods; they experienced them, lived them, until the spell released them.

Enlightenment pierced through them.

I saw defensive magic too, woven between the attacks. The Shield of the Seraphim as one sorcerer called it, golden barriers that I could see with my eyes be able to withstand  forces he should never be able to. The Mirror of Ikonn, reflecting attacks back at their source. The Sapphire Bands of Storaan, creating zones where magic itself functioned differently.

There were simpler spells mixed in, telekinetic pushes, basic energy blasts, transmutations that tried to turn air into stone around me. Dimensional anchors that attempted to lock me in place. Temporal loops on a small scale, trying to trap me repeating the same second forever.

I recognized influences beyond just Western mysticism. It was in how the spells appeared more precisely their structures to my eyes. 

There were spells drawn from Norse traditions, rune-magic that carved meaning directly into reality, where the symbol was the effect. 

I saw the Norse' influence, how Asgardian magic differed from human sorcery by treating magic as fundamental law rather than borrowed power. From within instead of from a patron or something of the sort.

Celtic knot-work appeared in some castings, endless loops that created paradoxes to trap the unwary. I could see that it was the kind of magic that didn't fight you; the kind that convinced you that you'd already lost, that you'd been caught in the pattern since before time began.

East Asian techniques manifested as well—qi manipulation, life energy shaped and directed.

These spells felt different, less transactional. Where Western magic often bargained with entities, Eastern magic seemed to based themselves on internal power, shaped the energy already present within the body. In other words, it was xianxia all the way down.

Mayan and Aztec influences colored some attacks with obsidian edges and jade light. These were sacrifice magics, requiring something given freely to empower the spell. Blood, from others or yours, no matter as long as one bled. One of the clever trick they had showed me was how these sorcerers used their own life force in small, measured amounts instead of blood which I didn’t know if it was better or worse in the long term.

African traditions showed themselves in spells that called on ancestral spirits, that drew power from lineage and history rather than entities or personal cultivation. These were communal magics, strongest when many sorcerers worked together.

I absorbed it all.

Understood it all.

The theory, the practice, the thousand small variations that made each tradition unique while serving the same fundamental purpose: reshaping reality according to will.

My body continued moving through their assault like water around stones. Not avoiding so much as simply existing in the spaces between attacks, finding the gaps without conscious thought.

I let myself fall.

The ground, currently above me, because directions were suggestions here rushed up to meet me. Or down to meet me. The perspective was negotiable.

I didn't tense. Didn't brace for impact. Just fell with arms spread, face serene, like someone taking a leap of faith from a very tall building.

The "ground" approached.

I pushed off it before making contact, telekinesis converting my fall into motion parallel to the surface. My feet touched down and kept moving, and suddenly I was skating, no, not skating. Gliding. Flowing across the vertical surface as if it were horizontal, as if gravity had simply decided again I was the exception to its rules.

The world twisted again. The surface I moved across became glass, became water, became nothing. I adjusted without pause, found purchase where there was none, and continued.

Spells manifested directly in my path, walls of force, barriers of energy, traps that would ensnare or eliminate.

I treated them like ramps.

My body left the "ground" entirely, airborne again, and I tucked into a rotation. 

One full turn. 

Two. 

The world spun around me or I spun around the world and I came out of the rotation with one hand extended, fingertips brushing the surface of a massive mandala that someone had conjured in my path.

The contact was enough. 

I pushed off it, the mandala's energy giving me momentum for a flip that carried me up and over the next wave of attacks. 

My body extended fully at the apex, spine arched, limbs spread, before tucking again into a spiral.

I hit another spell, a barrier this time with both feet, absorbed the impact through my knees, and launched. 

The barrier shattered from the force, but by then I was elsewhere, already repositioning.

Another mandala appeared. 

I twisted in midair, caught it with one hand, and used it as an axis point for a full rotation before releasing. 

My trajectory changed by ninety degrees, carrying me through a gap in the attacks that hadn't existed a moment before.

They were trying to box me in, to limit my options. 

Every spell narrowed the available space, herding me toward traps they'd prepared.

I responded by treating three-dimensional space as a polite suggestion.

Up became a direction I chose rather than one gravity imposed. 

When spells converged from multiple angles, I simply moved as if moving  through the fourth dimension and by that i didn’t mean time or any true dimension but still one, a spatial dimension beyond conventional three and appeared somewhere orthogonal to their attacks.

My hands never left my pockets. 

My expression never shifted from mild amusement. 

I was a figure skater performing for an audience of one, myself, and the performance required me to look effortless even as I navigated impossibilities.

If I couldn’t do this at least, what was the point?

If I couldn’t do this at least, what were my chances of winning against Velgrynd?

The attacks continued. 

Escalated.

They were getting creative now, desperate. 

Reality warped more aggressively, trying to catch me in spatial loops or temporal snares.

I felt the shift before I saw it, sorcerers abandoning ranged attacks in favor of close quarters. 

They closed in from multiple vectors simultaneously, bodies wreathed in enhancement magic that pushed human limitations past their breaking points.

Their movements held the precision of decades of training. 

Each step, each gesture, each breath was deliberate, economical, perfect.

The first one reached me with a construct weapon, a staff of golden light that hummed with borrowed power. 

His strike came fast, aimed at my temple, meant to end this quickly.

I tilted my head three inches to the left. 

The staff passed through empty air, and the sorcerer's momentum carried him slightly off-balance.

Another appeared at my back, twin daggers of crimson energy seeking my spine. 

I rotated on one foot, my body describing a perfect circle, and was suddenly facing her. 

The daggers stabbed forward into space I'd vacated.

A third came from above because up and down meant nothing here his hands glowing with the kind of enhancement magic that could punch through concrete. 

His fist descended toward my skull.

I swayed backward, spine bending in a way that actually made several sorcerers wince, and his fist passed close enough that I felt the heat of his magic against my face.

They converged from all sides simultaneously, six, seven, eight of them, all moving in perfect coordination, centuries of collective experience focused on the singular goal of subduing me.

I met them with my fingertips.

A sword of light also called the Sword of the Seraphim, which actually, very impressive magic even if very non original came at my throat. 

I caught it between thumb and forefinger, held it there while the sorcerer wielding it stared in disbelief, then flicked my wrist. 

The sword spun from his grip, and I guided it with the barest touch toward another attacker.

That sorcerer blocked with a mandala shield, but the effort left him open.

A third attacker saw the opportunity and struck, not at me, but at his fellow, thinking I'd moved into that space.

I hadn't. I'd rotated around behind them, using their own weapons and bodies as shields, as obstacles for each other to navigate.

They adjusted quickly, credit to their training. Fell back into formation, reset their approach.

I met them again. 

This time when a staff came at me, I didn't block. 

I leaned, letting my weight carry me backward, then forward, then to the side, always moving in that minimal space between lethal and safe. 

My hands came up,not to strike, but to redirect. 

A palm against a wrist here, fingers guiding an elbow there, always the softest touch required to send attacks toward unintended targets.

They were fighting each other as much as me now, forced to defend against blows meant for me that I'd casually redirected.

One sorcerer, young, male, looking determined came at me with enhanced speed, moving faster than human eyes should track. His hands blazed with destructive force.

I matched his speed, moved with him rather than against him. 

Our movements synchronized, became almost choreographed. 

He threw a punch; I rotated around it, our bodies orbiting each other. 

He kicked; I caught his leg with my hip and used the momentum to spin us both.

We moved through the warped space together, neither landing a blow, both of us impossibly fast. 

To an outside observer, it might have looked like we were partners rather than opponents, executing some elaborate routine.

Another joined in. 

Then another. 

Soon I was moving between four opponents simultaneously, my body finding the rhythm of their attacks, flowing with them rather than against them.

A woman with blonde platinum hair and fierce eyes came at me with daggers, real ones this time, not conjured. 

She was good, I had to admit, each strike precise, each feint convincing.

I treated her attacks like an invitation. 

Moved when she moved, mirrored her footwork, let our momentum carry us in circles. 

At one point we were back-to-back, her spinning one way while I spun the other, and for half a second we shared the same axis of rotation.

Then we separated, and the dance continued.

They never landed a hit. 

Not one. But I never struck them either, never used force beyond the gentle redirections required to keep them attacking each other.

The woman with the daggers came at me again, faster now, frustrated. She lunged forward with everything she had.

I stepped aside.

Her momentum carried her forward, feet tangling on something, a fold in reality, maybe, or just her own exhaustion and she stumbled directly toward me.

I caught her.

One hand on her hip, supporting her weight, the other catching her wrist to arrest the dagger's motion. 

We froze in that position, her bent forward over my arm, her face inches from mine.

Her eyes went wide. This close, I could see the gold flecks in her dark irises, could count her eyelashes, could smell the faint scent of jasmine that clung to her robes.

My lips quirked into a smile. 

I leaned in slightly, letting my voice drop to something barely above a whisper, intimate and playful. "It's not every day, unfortunately, that a beautiful woman falls into my hands."

The words hung between us, heavy with implication. Her breath hitched.

I knew I was attractive, classically so, with sharp cheekbones and full lips. I knew that I had gained in my second life The kind of features that belonged on magazine covers or ancient sculptures. The kind of beauty Aphrodite would have to admit even if she hated it that it was equal if not superior to her.

And right now, I was using those features to paint the most delightful shade of red on her, watching spreading from her cheeks down her neck.

I gave her a wink, slow and deliberate, then leaned closer until my lips nearly brushed her ear. "You should be more careful. Someone might take advantage."

Her flush deepened. Her mouth opened, closed, opened again without sound. The dagger in her hand trembled slightly.

For a moment, just a moment, she looked at me as if I asking what are we, as if a she had forgotten we were enemies. 

I could hear her heartbeat, the way it warred with itself because a part of it had responded to mine on an instinctual level

I pushed her gently, a soft pressure against her hip that set her back on her feet and gave her space.

Then I moved.

Not away. 

Through the renewed assault, through spells and strikes that came from all directions.

I let my hips lead, let my spine curve and straighten in ways that were more provocation than defense. 

Each movement was deliberate, charged with an energy that had nothing to do with magic and everything to do with presence because you could do something, even if you were depressed and deep down only wanted to die, it didn't mean you shouldn't have style in all the senses of the term.

When I leaned back to avoid a strike, I arched my back fully, head tilted to expose my throat, chest lifted. 

When I spun away from an attack, I let the rotation continue longer than necessary, my body describing sensuous circles through space.

I caught a sorcerer's wrist as he struck, used his own momentum to pull him close close enough that he could feel my breath against his neck before releasing him and moving on to the next.

The air itself seemed to thicken, became charged with something electric and dangerous. 

Every gesture, every shift of weight, every tilt of my head was an invitation and a challenge combined.

The platinum blondewoman came at me again, but this time there was something different in her eyes.

I met her in the center of the warped space, and for a moment we were the only two people in existence. 

She threw a punch; I caught her wrist and pulled her into a spin. 

Her back pressed against my chest, my arm around her waist, holding her there.

"Still fighting?" I murmured against her ear.

She shivered. Whether from fear or something else, I couldn't tell.

I released her, pushed her away gently, and continued my motion through the crowd of sorcerers.

The temperature seemed to rise. 

Or maybe that was just the heat of bodies moving through space, the friction of magic against magic, the weight of all that unspoken tension coiling tighter with every passing moment.

I caught another attacker, male this time, because I didn't discriminate on the ones I flexed on, young and earnest and pulled him close enough that he could see his reflection in my eyes. 

His attack faltered. 

His breath caught.

"Enjoying yourself?" I asked, voice low and rich with amusement.

He couldn't answer. Could barely think, from the look of him.

“No touch allowed though,” I told him before k released him and moved on, leaving him standing frozen while I continued through the others.

The platinum blonde haired woman finally broke from the pattern.

Her hand came up, magic gathering in her palm. 

Golden light, harsh and bright. 

A spell meant for my face, close range, impossible to dodge at this distance.

I smiled. "Already the end of our dance? Such a shame."

My hand moved, gentle, barely any force and guided her palm upward just as she released the spell.

The blast shot skyward, struck something overhead, and exploded in a shower of golden motes that rained down around us like snow made of light. The particles fell slowly, defying gravity, and for a moment we stood in a storm of luminescence, just the two of us, her hand still in mine.

Then I pushed her away. Softly. Firmly.

She stumbled back, caught herself, stared at me with eyes that held too many emotions to name.

The rain of light faded.

Silence fell.

I stood at the center of the warped space, alone now, while the sorcerers maintained their distance. No more spells flew at me. No more attacks came.

They understood now.

They'd thrown everything at me decades of training for some centuries of accumulated magical knowledge, every technique and tactic they possessed and I'd treated it like a game. Hadn't hurt a single one of them. Hadn't even tried.

They were children playing at war while I humored them and we all knew it’s

But I could still see defiance in some eyes. Still see the calculation, the stubborn belief that maybe, maybe, if they tried harder, thought smarter, worked together better...

Time to end that fantasy.

The irony was delicious. They'd pulled me into the Mirror Dimension thinking it gave them an advantage, that here they could use the full extent of their power without worrying about collateral damage.

They were right about one thing: someone could use their full power here.

It just wasn't them.

I raised my hand, palm facing upward toward the fractured sky.

Then I began to cast.

Every spell they'd shown me, every single technique I'd absorbed and analyzed during our little dance poured out of me. Not copied. Improved. Each one stronger, more refined, more perfect than the originals.

The Crimson Bands, but woven from Nothing itself, unbreakable because they were absence rather than presence.

The Flames of the Faltine, but burning cold instead of hot, freezing possibility rather than consuming it.

The Bolts of Balthakk, but tracking not intention but fate, striking where you would be in all possible futures.

If anything, all of this had been productive. I had so much idea for my next round against Velgrynd.

Hundreds of spells. Thousands. Each one manifesting above me as points of light that hung in the warped sky like—

Like stars.

No. 

Not stars. 

Better than stars. 

These were concentrated annihilation, each one containing enough destructive potential to level mountains, and they accumulated above me in constellations of death.

I felt the sorcerers' eyes lift, felt their hope die as they comprehended what they were seeing.

This was what despair looked like. This was the moment they understood that they'd never had a chance, that from the very beginning this had been a foregone conclusion.

My smile turned cold.

"Such a pity," I said softly, "that this is just the beginning."

I closed my hand.

The spells moved.

But they didn't fall. Didn't scatter. Didn't clash against each other in chaotic destruction.

Instead, they merged.

Crimson bands wove with eldritch flames. Bolts of chaos fused with shields of seraphim. Every disparate piece of magic I'd created began to combine, to unify, to become something singular and terrible.

The light was blinding at first. 

Then it inverted, collapsed inward, and became something else entirely.

A sphere hung where the constellation had been. 

Black. 

Perfectly black. Not the absence of light but the consumption of it, a hunger given form.

It eclipsed everything. 

The sun wherever the hell the sun was in this twisted spacevanished behind it. 

The sphere became the only source of illumination, but the light it gave off was wrong, bent and distorted as it fell into that impossible surface.

The sphere grew. 

Expanded. 

Filled more and more of the sky until it was the sky, until nothing else existed except that terrible hungry darkness.

If they'd been in despair before, now they were in something beyond despair. 

Beyond terror. 

This was the moment where the human mind breaks, unable to process the magnitude of what it's witnessing.

Some fell to their knees. 

Others tried to run, forgetting that running meant nothing here. 

A few attempted to cast defensive spells futile gestures, but I respected the effort.

I looked at them, at their horror, and felt nothing.

"I wonder," I said, voice carrying across the warped space with perfect clarity, "how this would feel for you."

Silence. The kind that comes when everyone is too afraid to breathe.

"According to my calculations, what would happen would be worse than death." I gestured at the sphere above us, casual, as if discussing weather rather than apocalypse. "You see, that's not just a weapon. It's a concept. The idea of ending made manifest. If it consumed you, you wouldn't just die. You'd be unmade."

I was mostly bullshtting them but they didn't know.

I paused, let them sit with that.

"Time would stretch infinitely in that final moment. You'd experience your own annihilation across eternity, watching yourself be erased particle by particle, thought by thought, memory by memory, forever falling into nothing while never quite arriving. No afterlife. No reincarnation. No peace. Just an eternal present tense of dissolution."

In other words, being Olga Maried

Someone sobbed. 

I didn't look to see who.

."Imagine being thrown into there. Imagine a black hole's event horizon, spaghettified, your consciousness stretched across infinite time while your body tears itself apart at the quantum level. Now imagine that lasting forever. That's what awaits anything this sphere touches."

I smiled, turned slightly to look at empty air on my right.

"Unless, of course, someone intervenes."

The air shifted.

Reality bent around a figure that simply appeared, as if she'd always been there and we'd only now noticed.

Well, they hadn't noticed but I had. She had been present since The beginning.

The Ancient One stood where I'd been looking, bald head gleaming, yellow robes pristine, hands folded within her sleeves. Her expression was calm, but her eyes held a weight that could only come when living centuries.

"There would be no need for such displays, Great One," she said, voice respectful but cautious. "Thank you for the mercy you've shown my students."

One of the sorcerers, the young man I'd played with earlier found his voice. "Ancient One! What... why aren't you doing anything? With you here, with us helping you, surely we can—"

"Win?" The Ancient One's gaze didn't leave me. "No. There was never any chance of winning. My presence changes nothing." She paused. "Especially against a primordial Goddess."

The word hung in the air like a pronouncement of judgment.

Silence fell harder than before.

I raised an eyebrow. "What makes you think that?"

"Your presence," she said simply. "The feel of your magic. It reminds me of what I've sensed in ancient temples, buried places where the old gods slept. Places dedicated to Tiamat, the Mother of Monsters, the Chaos Before Creation."

Interesting.

She wasn't wrong, exactly. True Dragons in Tensura were primordials, concepts given flesh, the foundational pillars of reality itself. And Tiamat, in certain mythologies, was depicted with draconic attributes, scales, multiple heads, the embodiment of primordial chaos.

The connection was there if you squinted.

But she wasn't right either. I wasn't Tiamat. Wasn't even the same category of being, really. 

Different universe, different rules, different nature, different stuff.

But I wasn't going to correct her.

The less people understood about what I actually was, the better. 

Let them fill in the gaps with their own mythologies, their own assumptions. Not knowing what was in the unknown was a good thing, for the ones who were unknown of course.

"Since the beginning," the Ancient One continued, "you could have crushed my students. Could have killed them all in the first moment. But you didn't." Her head tilted slightly. "Which suggests you're here for reasons beyond bloodshed. May I know the reason for your presence here, Great One?"

I brought my hand down.

Above us, the sphere began to dissolve. Not explode.

 Not collapse. 

Just... cease. 

The spells that composed it unwove themselves, returned to potential rather than actuality, and faded like morning mist under sunlight.

The sorcerers sagged with relief so profound it was almost physical.

I smiled before speaking, enjoying the moment. 

Then I opened my mouth and let the words out, words I'd been waiting to use since I'd decided to come here, words that would mean everything to the Ancient One even if no one else understood.

"Ancient One," I said, voice rich with amusement and promise, "I've come to bargain."

Her eyes widened.

Just for a moment, barely a fraction of a second—her centuries of composure cracked. Because those words, that specific phrase, carried weight she recognized because they would be almost exactly the same name her successor would use against Dormammu.

In other words, I had told her that I knew the future as much if not more than her, that I was even more dangerous than she could imagine and that if something happened, some kind of threat or trap, well, it wasn’t as if I couldn’t have put contingencies that she couldn’t afford to activate.

Of course, it was not the case but she didn’t know that.

Her thinking that it was the case was what was important here.

"It seems," she said slowly, and I could hear the calculations running behind her eyes, "we have much to discuss."

"Yes," I agreed. "We do."